Tools and equipment are often needed to enhance a human's capacity to accomplish physical tasks. These objects are used by laborers at construction worksites, by home owners during condo renovations, by car mechanics in their trade, by military personnel on maneuvers, etc. Recent developments in tools and equipment design directs designers to evolve monofunctional objects into multipurpose objects. Kitchen utensils gain functions, and plastic bags for the storage of food in cold environments are now designed to withstand heating in a microwave oven, etc. This evolutionary tendency faces numerous limitations and obstacles for which inventive steps are needed.
First, functions must be complimentary and useful for each trade and for each new item and must be based on a plurality of parameters. Amongst the myriad of possible key combinations, effective concepts result only rarely and after much inventive effort toward a proper new embodiment that advances the tool and equipment industry. Second, the union of multiple functions often results in a loss of efficiency or efficacy of the primary function of the object. For example, the multipurpose nature of a Swiss army knife, while useful in varied circumstances where weight and encumbrance is not primary (e.g., camping), is in fact not an adequate tool on a worksite because each of its functions has been limited somewhat by the grouping of multiple functions in one tool. Inventors struggle with weight, cost impact, size, and a wide variety of challenges associated with the design of a multipurpose tool or multipurpose equipment.
Worksites are often cluttered with tools and equipment. Safety concerns are raised when a worker must work among so much equipment. By reducing the number of tools and pieces of equipment needed to perform a task, safety is improved and the work process is optimized. In some circumstances, workers need worktables and small scaffolds at the same worksite. Scaffoldings are temporary frameworks made of wood, pipes, or other materials used to support people and materials in the construction or repair of buildings. Workbenches are table-size devices used in woodworking, metalworking, or other trades where a horizontal surface is required. Most workbenches are 3 to 4 feet high and are designed for use at a height where tasks such as sawing, cutting, or glueing are performed comfortably by most workers. What is needed is a multipurpose structure capable of serving as both a workbench and a scaffold at a desired location without undue effort.